More restrictions to LEGAL Immigration...really?

Congress Pits One Form of Legal Immigration Against Another » Immigration Impact

What Early DACA Application Numbers Tell Us About the Future of the Program

What Early DACA Application Numbers Tell Us About the Future of the Program

USCIS: Notice Regarding USCIS Centralized Filing for Waivers of Inadmissibility

USCIS: Notice Regarding USCIS Centralized Filing for Waivers of Inadmissibility

Notice that this is for people OUTSIDE the US and who have previously been denied an immigration benefit!

Who qualifies for the "DREAM" Executive Order?

To be eligible for deferred action, you must:

• Have come to the United States before your sixteenth birthday.
• Have continuously lived in the U.S. since June 15, 2007, and up to the present time.
• Be present in the U.S. on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making your request for deferred action.
• Not have lawful immigration status on June 15, 2012. This means you must have entered the U.S. without papers before June 15, 2012, or, if you entered lawfully, your lawful immigration status must have expired as of June 15, 2012.
• Be at least 15 years old, if you have never been in deportation proceedings or your proceedings were terminated. If you are currently in deportation proceedings, have a voluntary departure order, or have a deportation order, and are not in immigration detention, you may request deferred action even if you are not yet 15 years old.
• Be 30 years old or younger as of June 15, 2012 (a person who had not yet turned 31 on that date is also eligible).
• Be in school, have graduated or obtained a certificate of completion from high school, have obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or be an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or U.S. armed forces. If you are enrolled in school on the date that you submit your deferred action application, that will be considered to "be in school." See below for more information about meeting the "be in school" requirement.
• Have not been convicted of a felony offense. A felony is a federal, state, or local criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.
• Have not been convicted of a significant misdemeanor offense or three or more misdemeanor offenses. See below for more information about offenses that may disqualify you.
• Not pose a threat to national security or public safety (DHS is still defining what these terms mean but has indicated that they include gang membership, participation in criminal activities, or participation in activities that threaten the U.S.).
• Pass a background check.

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September: National Preparedness Month

September is National Preparedness Month. Have you taken steps to prepare for an emergency? According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), three elements of good preparation are: Being Informed -- Learn about the potential emergencies that can happen where you live and know the appropriate ways to respond to them.  Making a Plan -- Your family may not be together when disaster strikes, so it is important to plan what you would do in different situations. How would you get to a safe place? How would you contact one another and get back together?  Building a Kit -- Find a list of suggested items to include in an emergency supply kit. Taking these steps could help you and your family in the event of an emergency.

AMERICAN DREAM DEFERRED

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Median income falls, but so does poverty

By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney September 12, 2012: 3:05 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Middle-class families continued to suffer in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and the poverty rate fell slightly, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Wednesday.

Median household income fell to $50,054 in 2011, down 1.5% from a year earlier. Income inequality widened, as the highest income echelon experienced a jump, while those in the middle saw incomes shrink.

Are you better off?

Meanwhile, the national poverty rate eased to 15.0% in 2011, down slightly from 15.1% the year before. Some 46.2 million people fell below the poverty line last year, and one in five children were poor.

The poverty threshold for a family of four was $23,021.

Most experts were expecting an increase in poverty, but Census officials said a rise in the number of people working full time helped keep the rate in check.

Income inequality widens

Over the past year, the rich got richer, though the poor didn't get poorer. And those in the middle were pinched hard.

The top 1% saw their income grow by 6% in 2011, while the highest quintile of earners gained 1.6%, according to Census. But the middle 60% of Americans lost ground, falling between 1.6% and 1.9%. The poorest Americans did not see a significant change.

"A lot of the increase in inequality from 2010 to 2011 is driven by changes at the very top of the distribution," said David Johnson, chief of Census' social, economic, and housing statistics division.

The second and third quintile of Americans now take home only 23.8% of the nation's income, the lowest since the Johnson administration, said Tim Smeeding, the director for the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"The big story is the squeeze in the middle- and lower-middle classes," he said. "They got whacked."

Some groups were hit harder than others. Those ages 35 to 44 and 55 to 64 had a drop in income, as did white and black Americans. Households in the West experienced a 4.1% decline in income.

Overall, median income has fallen 8.9% from its peak in 1999. And it's fallen 8.1% since 2007, just before the Great Recession began.

Since the recession, incomes continued to fall, declining 4.1%. Though incomes dipped after the two preceding downturns, this drop is far worse, said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research, Pew Hispanic Center.

Related: Breaking the cycle of poverty

The number of men working full time, year-round increased by 1.7 million between 2010 and 2011, while the number of women rose by half a million.

This jump in people holding down full-time jobs may be the reason why poverty remained essentially the same. The number of workers in the lowest income group holding down full-time jobs soared 17.3% in 2011.

In the south, for instance, there were 1.23 million more people working last year, while the number of people in poverty fell by around 740,000.

Hispanics were the only race to experience a decline in poverty, which fell to 25.3%, down from 26.5% a year earlier. Non-citizens saw a 2.5% decline in poverty.

Suburban poverty also fell, the Census Bureau said. Thanks to an additional 1.5 million suburbanites finding full-time jobs, some 740,000 folks there were lifted out of poverty.

But the poverty rate does not truly reflect the condition of poor Americans because it does not take into account roughly $900 billion in government assistance, said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group.

"The entire welfare state is off the books," he said, noting that the nation hasn't made any progress in enabling Americans to become self-sufficient since the War on Poverty began under Johnson.

Related: Getting off government assistance

Poverty and income inequality have been in the spotlight during the 2012 election. Democrats are positioning themselves as the defenders of the middle class, while casting Republicans as caring only about the rich.

Republicans are looking to overhaul several safety net programs, including turning Medicaid and food stamps into block grants in hopes of relieving the federal government's fiscal burden. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is trying to paint President Obama as the entitlement president. The Republican presidential candidate is accusing Obama of trying to dismantle thewelfare-to-work system by allowing recipients to avoid the employment requirement. 

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/news/economy/median-income-poverty/index.html

The heat is on...

As the election approaches, we see the campaign turning up the heat. No holding back, not consideration. Nothing is off limits. Want to know what the candidates are about???? Go to http://one.org/us/actnow/onevote2012/index.html?gclid=COCNh57PsLICFQeCQgodpn4AmQ

African Union force to step up hunt for Kony

ENTEBBE, Uganda (AP) -- The African Union says it will send 5,000 soldiers tojoin the hunt for notorious rebel leader Joseph Kony, a new mission that comes amid a wildly popular Internet campaign targeting the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.

The mission is to be launched in South Sudan on Saturday and will last until Kony is caught, United Nations and African Union officials said at a news conference in Uganda.

"We need to stop Kony with hardware - with military hardware in this case," said Francisco Madeira, the African Union's special envoy on the LRA, on Friday. "We are on a mission to stop him."

Friday's announcement comes the same month an Internet movie campaign by the U.S.-based advocacy group Invisible Children sought to make Kony "famous" so that policymakers would make it a priority to remove him. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times.

Abou Moussa, head of the U.N.'s office in Central Africa, said soaring international interest in Kony had spurred regional efforts to eliminate the LRA.

"The awareness has been useful, very important," he said.

The hunt for Kony has primarily been carried out by troops from Uganda, who received a boost last year when President Barack Obama deployed 100 U.S. forces to help regional governments in the mission. American soldiers are now based in Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Congo.

The LRA is responsible for 2,600 civilian deaths since 2008, according to the African Union.

The African Union mission, to be led by a Ugandan commander, will comprise troops from Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Congo, countries where Kony's reign of terror has been felt over the years.

The African Union's most prominent military mission is in Somalia, where 17,700 troops - primarily from Uganda, Kenya and Burundi - are fighting al-Shabab militants. The force has made strong gains over the last year, pushing insurgents out of Somalia's capital.

The AU's new focus on Kony dovetails with the Ugandan military's stance that catching or killing Kony would mean the end of the LRA. His forces were ousted from Ugandan territory in 2005.

The officials meeting in Uganda on Friday did not say where the funding for the mission was coming from but acknowledged thatfinding money was a problem.

Madeira said the coordinated deployment of African troops would "neutralize Kony" and isolate the LRA, whose men have split into in small groups. The LRA is thought to have only 200 to 300 soldiers in it. The group has forced many children to become child soldiers and porters and women and girls to become sex slaves.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He is believed to be hiding in the Central African Republic.

Kony has stopped using technology like telephones, making it hard to track him down. Ugandan troops operating in the Central African Republic have recently encountered small outfits of the LRA, including a confrontation in which an LRA captain was injured and captured on March 8, according to Col. Joseph Balikuddembe, the top Ugandan commander there.

With 19% of votes counted, Romney is projected as the winner in Illinois

CANDIDATE		VOTES	PERCENT
	Mitt Romney	57,937	55.7%
	Rick Santorum	28,403	27.3
	Ron Paul	9,843	9.5
	Newt Gingrich	6,984	6.7
	Others	871	0.8
Full Results »19% reporting

KONY 2012

Height of Hypocrisy: South Carolina’s Harsh Ant-immigrant Law Exempts Jobs Often Held by Immigrants | America’s Voice | America's Voice

Height of Hypocrisy: South Carolina’s Harsh Ant-immigrant Law Exempts Jobs Often Held by Immigrants | America’s Voice | America's Voice

Supreme Court Brief on SB 1070: Arizona Seeking Confrontation, not Cooperation

• Constitution,
• Courts,
• Immigration Blog,
• SB 1070,
• State and Local Immigration Law,
• Supreme Court

by Ben Winograd

When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wagged her finger in President Obama’s face at a Phoenix airport earlier this year, she may have been seeking to score political points with the White House’s ideological opponents. What the governor may not have realized, however, is that she was giving the Obama administration the photographic equivalent of its closing argument in the legal challenge to SB 1070—namely, that Arizona is more interested in confronting the federal government than cooperating with it.

Filed approximately one month before oral arguments on April 25, the administration’s brief powerfully argues that SB 1070 represents a simple disagreement with federal immigration policy, not a good faith attempt to assist federal immigration authorities. As the brief bluntly puts it, “Arizona’s attempt to set its own policy for enforcement of federal immigration law is not cooperation; it is confrontation.” The brief said that while the federal government welcomes “genuine cooperation” from the local authorities, measures like SB 1070 create irreconcilable conflicts with federal immigration enforcement. For example:

• By requiring state and local officers to investigate the immigration status of all stopped persons where “reasonable suspicion” exists that they are in the country unlawfully, SB 1070 may result in prolonged detention of both U.S.citizens and immigrants with federal permission to be or remain in theUnited States.
• Even though federal law does not make unlawful presence a criminal offense, undocumented immigrants may be imprisoned under SB 1070 for failing to carry “registration” papers from the federal government.
• While Congress deliberately decided to impose only civil penalties (i.e. deportation) on foreign visitors who work without authorization, SB 1070 permits such immigrants to be imprisoned for up to six months simply for soliciting work.
• By allowing law enforcement agents to unilaterally arrest persons convicted of “removable” offenses, SB 1070 will allow local police to harass or punish legal immigrants and other individuals with federal permission to remain in the country.

In addition to citing SB 1070’s numerous conflicts with federal immigration law, the administration’s brief also refuted the contention in Arizona’s brief that it should have greater leeway to create its own immigration policies by virtue of its status as a border state. In a clever legal tactic aimed at conservatives like Justice Antonin Scalia, the government cited an argument in one of the Federalist Papers—articles written by the Framers in defense of the Constitution—that the federal government should have exclusive power over international affairs precisely because states along the border would otherwise be free to incite conflicts with other nations.

While states may be justifiably frustrated with Congress’ failure to reform the immigration laws, the administration’s brief makes clear why they should not be free to create their own immigration policies. No matter their intentions, state politicians like Governor Brewer are powerless to solve the underlying problems of our immigration predicament—problems that only Congress can solve. Even if passed in the name of “cooperation,” laws like SB 1070 only add an additional layer of dysfunction to a system that is already broken.

States Continue to Propose Tuition Equity for Undocumented Immigrants

• Children,
• Immigration Blog,
• Integration,
• State and Local Immigration Law,
• Uncategorized,
• Undocumented Immigration

by Seth Hoy

While some state lawmakers continue to push extreme “get tough” immigration enforcement measures through their state houses, others are contemplating the benefits of having more highly educated students in their state. In Indiana, for example, one Republican lawmaker recently amended an education bill to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students already enrolled in state schools, asking “if they’re going to be living here anyway, why not let them be productive members of Indiana society?” Lawmakers in other states, including Colorado and New York, are also pushing for better access to higher education for qualifying undocumented students.

Indiana lawmakers successfully banned undocumented students from receiving in-tuition rates last year when they passed their Arizona copycat law, SB 590. This year, however, Republican Sen. Jean Leising of Oldenburg included an amendment to an education bill (HB 1326) that would restore in-state tuition for undocumented students who enrolled in universities on or before July 2011. State Sen. Leising, who called it “a matter of fairness,” had strong support from Senate education committee members when adding the amendment. Unfortunately, the Senate held the entire bill due to opposition to the amendment.

In Colorado, lawmakers are considering SB 15 (or ASSET), a tuition equity bill that would provide a “standard” tuition rate (higher than in-state tuition, but lower than out-of-state) to qualifying students regardless of their immigration status. The bill, which has been preliminarily approved by Colorado’s Democratic Senate, now goes to the Republican House where it awaits further committee assignment. Last year, a tuition equity measure died in the House Judiciary Committee.

According to Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb:

Undocumented students are part of our economy, and educating them — and not branding them for speaking other languages — creates an environment for them to be contributing members of our society. I truly believe that access to education for all of our children will not only benefit them personally but also benefit everyone who lives here.

And in New York, where undocumented students already have access to in-state tuition rates, lawmakers are still considering the New York DREAM Act (S 4179). Introduced in March 2012, the New York DREAM Actwould allow qualifying undocumented students to apply for private and public financial assistance, like the state’s Tuition Assistance Program. The bill has been backed by Senator Gillibrand, Mayor Bloomberg, the State and City University systems and the New York Board of Regents. According to a recent Fiscal Policy Institute analysis, “there are strong fiscal and economic benefits to the state when the labor force is better educated.” For example, “increasing the education level of workers also increases their productivity, and the more highly educated a state’s labor force, the more attractive is that state as a place to locate businesses.”

According to the National Immigration Law Center:

“Twelve states currently have laws permitting certain undocumented students who have attended and graduated from their primary and secondary schools to pay the same tuition as their classmates at public institutions of higher education. The states are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington. In addition, Rhode Island’s Board of Governors for Higher Education voted unanimously to provide access to in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities to certain students, regardless of their immigration status, beginning in 2012.”

It’s also worth nothing that Minnesota provides a “flat” tuition rate in some of its college systems.

For a complete list of state bills addressing access to education for immigrant students check out the National Immigration Law Center’s website.

Where are the Latinos in the US?

A report from the Pew Hispanic Center today analyzed Census data and released some interesting findings. Here’s a portion of the release:

• The 10 states with the largest Hispanic populations are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico and Georgia.
• The 10 states in which the Hispanic share of the population is highest are New Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Colorado, New Jersey, New York and Illinois.
• Nearly half (47%) of all Hispanics live in California (14.1 million) or Texas (9.5 million), down from 50% in 2000.
• California has 5.4 million Hispanic immigrants, more than any other state. California is followed by Texas, with 2.9 million Hispanics immigrants, and Florida with 2.1 million Hispanic immigrants.
• Slightly more than half of Hispanics in Maryland (54%), the District of Columbia (52%) and Alabama (51%) are foreign born, the highest foreign born shares among Hispanics in the U.S.

Among the key findings from the county database:

• Los Angeles County, California, has the nation’s largest Hispanic population—-nearly 4.7 million.
• More than 95% of the populations in the Texas counties of Webb, Starr and Maverick are Hispanic—-the highest Hispanic population shares in the nation.
• The Hispanic population is more dispersed today than in 2000. Then, the 50 counties with the largest Hispanic populations had two-thirds (64%) of the nation’s Hispanic population. In 2010, those same counties contained 59% of all Hispanics.
• Only four counties had a decrease of more than 1,000 people in their Hispanic population between 2000 and 2010—-New York County, NY; Arlington County, VA; Rio Arriba County, NM; and Duval County, TX.

GOP Primary Update: Delegate Count to date

Republican Delegate Tally

Delegate totals are from The Associated Press, and include the preferences of superdelegates, Republican party leaders who are free to support any candidate.

LAST UPDATED: 11:18 AM ET

521

Mitt
Romney

253

Rick
Santorum

136

Newt
Gingrich

50

Ron
Paul

1144 delegates needed towin nomination

1324

Delegates